What is Kobuk Valley National Park known for?
What is Kobuk Valley National Park known for?
It’s best known for the desert-like sand dunes that cover most of its southern reaches. The biggest and most famous are the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, which cover 25 square miles and can measure 100 ft (30 m) high. The sand was ground down by glaciers, then carried here by wind and water after the last Ice Age.
What animals live in Kobuk Valley National Park?
Animals that live in Kobuk Valley National Park include the Alaskan moose, black bears, brown bears, Canadian Lynxes, red foxes, wolves, wolverines, minks, martens, Dall’s sheep, caribou, beavers, river otters, hares, porcupines, and muskrats.
How many people visit Kobuk?
Kobuk Valley National Park is the most remote and least visited national park in the US National Park System. Official numbers claim that the park gets about 10,000 visitors per year, but this estimate includes native people who enter the park.
Who made Kobuk Valley a national park?
Kobuk Valley National Park is among those park areas first established in 1978 by Presidential Proclamation by President Carter when he withdrew over 100 million acres of federal land, including 56 million acres as national monuments.
What does the name Kobuk mean?
big river
Orth), “Kobuk” is an Inupiaq Eskimo word meaning “big river.” In older publications it is sometimes spelled “Kowak” or “Kowuk.” Several 19th century explorers recorded the name with different spellings, such as: Ku-buck, Koowak, Kowak, Kooak, Kopak, Kubuk, and Kuvuk.
What plants live in Kobuk Valley National Park?
The northern tree line zigzags through the valleys of the Brooks Range and along the Kobuk River . Spruce, willow, and birch trees are found along rivers and streams, on many south-facing hills, and where drainage is good and permafrost is lacking.
What is the size of Kobuk Valley National Park?
1.75 million acres
Kobuk Valley National Park covers 1.75 million acres of boreal forest and mountains in northwestern Alaska and includes the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes—the largest active, high-latitude, dune field on Earth.
How did Kobuk Valley get its name?
Kobuk Valley National Park is named after the Kobuk River valley, which runs through its center.
How did Kobuk Valley become a national park?
Kobuk Valley was established as a national monument by presidential proclamation in 1978 and redesignated a national park by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980.
What year did Kobuk Valley become a national park?
1980
Kobuk Valley was established as a national monument by presidential proclamation in 1978 and redesignated a national park by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980.
How was Kobuk Valley formed?
Kobuk Valley’s sand dunes are a relic of the last Ice Age. 28,000 years ago, the Earth cooled and glaciers began to form high in the mountains surrounding the valley.
How many acres is Kobuk Valley National Park?
What is the size of Kobuk Valley?
What makes Kobuk Valley National Park so special?
Caribou, sand dunes, the Kobuk River, Onion Portage – just some of the facets of Kobuk Valley National Park. Half a million caribou migrate through, their tracks crisscrossing sculpted dunes.
Where are the sand dune fields on the Kobuk River?
Three sets of sand dune fields are located on the south side of the Kobuk River. The Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, Little Kobuk Sand Dunes and the Hunt River Dunes are remnants of dune fields that covered as many as 200,000 acres (81,000 ha) immediately after the retreat of Pleistocene glaciation.
How do you get to Kotzebue National Park?
Kobuk Valley is one of eight national parks in Alaska, the state with the second most national parks, surpassed only by California which has nine. The park is managed by the National Park Service. Since no roads lead into the park, visitors arrive via chartered air taxi from Nome, Bettles, or Kotzebue.